Free L4D2 expansion The Passing is out right now on Steam. Free for you guys, anyway. Xbox 360 gamers actually have to shell out 145,500 Microsoft Points for it (about £5), probably because they smell. Exciting new features include a new uncommon ‘Fallen Survivor’ infected and a brand new three level campaign featuring the survivors from the original Left 4 Dead. Less exciting new features include a new gun, footlockers, and an achievement for decapitating 15 zombies with the new golf club melee weapon.

Weird new features include the new Mutations gameplay mode, which will offer a different new game mode every week. This week it’s Realism Versus, which offers (wait for it) Versus mode, with the punishing twists of Realism mode enabled. Next week it’ll be something entirely different. Fabulous! Lucky we’ve got the mod community to provide fan-made replacements when good Mutations vanish after their week in the spotlight. Unlike 360 owners.

It was rubbish. Played through it last night with a friends and we both felt that it was a load of old hot air and hype. It’s a *very* short ‘2 map + scavenge finale’ affair with practically zero interaction with the original survivors. The launch trailer has more.

Textures are right out of the Counterstrike era and the environment has that ‘The Parish’ cardboard cut-out feel like a Hollywood movie set, with 1 pixel thin walls. The whole things plays like a bad mod that someone whipped up in a weekend.

Maybe I’ve been playing too much Bad Company 2 lately and my point of reference has moved on but The Passing felt like a mod to a 5 year old game. Valve need some fresh ideas and a new game engine, imo.

Harsh! I played last night and enjoyed my time there, esp. the last scavenge-level. Free (FREE) DLC to an already excellent, immersive cooperative game and some are still tempted to bitch and moan. I understand if BC2 has spoiled you on the graphics front, but I’ve always appreciated that I can play TF2 and LFD2 on my aging PC without nary a blink. Costs and benefits, pros and cons.

@Howl – Yeah, I think that’s a little harsh. It is pretty quick (took me 31 mins to play through) and nothing super-revolutionary (and yes, the interaction with the other survivors is barely there) but considering it doesn’t cost anything it’s a nice little addon I thought.

This update was completely free to us PC gamers, we got new game modes, new maps, a new weapon, a new zombie type, a bunch of new zombie skins, and even the little things that new midnight riders tune and the witch bride.

The map design is fantastic, we played through without getting lost once, even going through the maze of sewers and basements on the second level. There is a good mix of wide open areas, tight CQB areas, death spots, choke points and a challenging finale – especially on VS.

Your biggest complaint seems to be the graphics weren’t on par with your expectations after playing BFBC2… dude, what exactly were you expecting here? Valve to release a next generation Source engine with a content update?!

It’s free and of substantially higher quality and scope than most DLC around today that we’re asked to pay at least a fiver for. Go ask them for a refund if you’re unsatisfied. :P

On the finale after you talk to the other three, go from the elevator to the generator you take fuel to, turn right, and next to the table with the medkits there’s a door. Go through the door, and in front of the huge green generator thing there’s a gun. Look at the gun.

:(

Spoiler warning would have been nice though (the OP’s about how it’s just been released after all, you’d expect those that hadn’t played yet to wander in)

Oh ho, hrm, yes, that Left 4 Dead 2 business! Just completely rushed out, utter tripe! Not an improvement on the original in every single way, eh hrm, yes. Just like that wretched bit of offal, Assassin’s Creed 2, oh ho ho! I do so pity the commoners that bought those games! *dons monocle, sips tea, feels superior*

Damn, I was really hoping to be able to say “in before Lobotomist says “lol what game? Who cares?”. Too late. Seems he seems to care to a particularly great degree about the game, seeing as he posts every time it comes up.

Played it with my and friends and although it was fun (and free) it was not what I had hoped it to be.
The level look quite bland as well, I thought I was going in for a treat but it felt like it contained almost the bare minimum to be considered releaseworthy from a real company and not like they tried their best.
I had hoped for a full night of cool gameplay and interaction with the L4D1 survivors, but they were just kinda sitting on top of the bridge doing absolutely nothing.
And also what I think many believed was that you would fight the dead survivor as a boss infected (what would otherwise motivate that one of them died in a zombie-game?)
Anyhow, mutation will still be awesome.

I agree – it would be nice if, when someone else has played something, they didn’t simply post a comment slagging it off and telling people who haven’t played it yet what they can expect. Personally I enjoyed playing it and I expect I will do so many more times.

Had a quick go last night, but just had a slightly more substantial play of it. Really very good. Sure, it is only 3 maps long (compared to the normal 5 or long 4 map campaigns of L4D2), but they are very good quality.

Having only played one game of it in Versus, I can already say that it has some excellent opportunities for attacks. Unlike the levels included with L4D2, the map feels as if it was made as much from the Infected perspective as from the Survivors and there are plenty of roof tops accessible, with far less of those pesky invisible walls. Some great places to Charge and to pull people of ledges. I can see the Survivors having to be really careful in this campaign, unlike many of the original ones which are simply a sprint for them. The shortness also benefits Versus quite a bit, as it shouldn’t take hours to complete a single game (wish they would add a one map mode of Versus or some sort of build your own match, where you can select three from any campaign.)

The finale is pretty good, but I mainly see it as giving us a much needed new map for Scavenge. No one seems to play any other map besides The Atrium (which, is clearly the best one, along with Sugar Mill,) so a fresh new one should spice things up a bit in that mode. The DLC also comes with two other Scavenge maps, but I’ve yet to give those a go. Hopefully they will be of the same high quality.

I actually really liked the look of the new maps. Much darker in tone and it does make me realise why people miss the original game’s aesthetics. Not to say I don’t like the lighter settings in L4D2, but it is certainly very different.

The old survivors did feel a little thrown in, but you can’t really expect big long discussions between the two groups. Perhaps them following you through more of the campaign would have been better, but that could have made the whole thing a bit too easy and would have destroyed Versus (they are noticeably absent from the Versus finale.) At least we will get to see more of them in the new L4D DLC, which I hope for some more info on soon. I hope they add some of the L4D2 special infected to deal with the corner camping, or something new to deter it.

My only real quibble at the moment is the lack of any servers. I tried joining quite a few campaign games today, but gave up after constantly joining local servers. I ended up playing a Versus game, which went fine, but afterwards tried to play Scavenge and ran into the same problem. I really feel that Valve need start the lobby system from scratch. It is so frustrating in its current form. Don’t give me “The Passing – 5 games” and no more information. Give me each individual game with ping if the game is in progress and the number of players. Also, take away this insane thing of it creating a local game if it can’t find a dedicated/official server. The pings are pretty much always terrible and make the game unplayable.

Can’t believe M$ is charging the 360 gamers for this, so sad since its obvious M$ is making Valve charge them so the console gamers don’t ‘get used’ to free updates. God forbid a company wants to build value in a product…. Glad I mostly game on my PC :)

But anyway I’ll give this a shot tonight, I’ve been playing BFBC2 and Monster Hunter Tri way too much lately so it will be good to go back to this great game .

Anyway, I ran through it on single player first and it was a HASSLE to do the finale. The bots don’t pick up gas so you have to get all ten by yourself and they are spread out over a very wide area. Still, the ep was a lot of fun and I felt properly turned about in the second map especially. It just seemed like there were so many different directions one could go but I guess I’ll find out in about fifteen minutes when I’m back up in there.

The maps are appalling in Versus. A Infected it has become a lot worse in terms of map-design; whilst there are more high roofs for hunters, invisible walls combined with many parts of buildings missing just because the Survivors can’t see from high up shows a rush job.

Hell, I wouldn’t actually blame Valve if they DID put out L4D3 by the end of this year at this point. If you can make $50 off 25 maps (plus 3 bonus freebies at the midpoint of the year) some tweaks and some extras per year, why not let that be the engine that keeps money coming into the company while you work on more substantial projects? As long as they keep selling, who can really blame them? And as long as it’s funding development of Episode 3 and Portal 2, why do I care? I mean aside from certain friends of mine constantly nagging me to buy the stupid things?

Some of the most fun in the last year has been playing L4D2. You get a high level of tension from facing down superior foes or while low on supplies. Tension leads to excitement. And excitement means fun.

Honestly, even if I had played it only a tenth of the time I did, I’d still consider it money well spent. It’s fantastic. Though, if they put out a Left4Dead3 game, I’d want randomized maps.

Seriously Lobotomist, go back to whatever trolling community you came from. We don’t like your kind here.

Sidenote: Quintin is posting this! Is Quinns an official hivemind node now?

@Gorgeras – True, most of the campaigns work very badly in Versus (although, some of the individual levels are really good) and that is why I generally stick with Scavenge, but that is not true for The Passing. All three of the levels are excellent to play as Infected in. Perhaps it is just because people don’t know the maps yet, but the couple of Versus games I have played have been much closer than any of the games from the original L4D2 and had some really good Infected opportunities.

I’d rather pay money for quality DRM than have them churn out free crap like this. It’s clearly the bare minimum they could get away with to look like they were still supporting the title and sell more copies of the game.

10 quid a campaign, with unique art and voice assets, new weapons. Something that’s the same quality as the campaigns in the full release. They would make money that way and I’m sure have happier customers too.

@Howl
This one has unique art, it definitely has new voice assets, it has new weapons. It is shorter than the ones in the original game, I’ll give you that. I for one, however, had fun with it, and I liked the interaction with the original survivors. It actually made me feel powerful when they showed up, emphasizing the Power of Teamwork theme that the L4Ds have running through them. Also the shorter length can actually be a bit of an asset, since it adds to versatility. It’s nice to be able to jump into a spot of L4D2 without having to clear a whole chunk of time, or not finish the campaign, which always would leave me feeling unsatisfied.

Also, free updates don’t split the community. If they charged for campaigns you can’t be sure that everyone actually has the campaign. At ten bucks I can definitely see people refusing to buy it, especially when the full game can be had for as little as twenty.

Also, I’m pretty sure you meant DLC there and not DRM, but that’s an honest mistake to make.

I’m going to resist this time. I love the idea of zombie killing games, but none of them I’ve seen have done what I think would be a fun zombie survival game, which is an ACTUAL survival game. L4D isn’t a survival game. It’s not really a horror game either. It’s more of a run forward while shooting, occasionally changing it up when a special infected comes near” shooter. Survival mode showed promise, but from what I’ve played of it’s it’s more like a finale that you can’t win than an actual survival.

See, what I want in a zombie game is fortification. Call of Duty WaW’s zombie mode almost made me spend 50 bucks on the game, despite LOATHING WW2 shooters, and it’s WAY more simple than L4D, let alone it’s sequel. I want a thinking man’s Zombie survival game. It’s not about fast paced zombie shootin, more about slow paced zombie surviving.

I’m talking barricading doors, the whole nine yards. L4D would fit it pretty well, considering the special infected could do various things to mess up your fortification. Basically slower based, but with WAY more zombies.

I originally though L4D was going to be my dream zombie game, but it’s more of a “better selling” zombie game that just about anyone can pick up and play. I’m not going to lie, it’s a great party game for 360, as you pretty much just need to tell friends who’ve never played it “Shoot them in the head, and follow me”.

Granted, a “perfect” survival mode would get boring quick, and would need lots of updates to keep it interesting, which is why I suspect Valve hasn’t added one yet. Granted I don’t feel that the current model does any better job of keeping you interested beyond a run through by yourself/with friends, and then a few versus matches.

Fort Zombie is indeed deeply flawed, but as close as one can get on the singleplayer front.
As far as multiplayer, Zombie Panic Source is pretty fun — a Half Life 2 mod, it has teams split between zombies and humans, with a full mechanic for barricading houses and finding optimal hiding places. I’ve actually had a lot of fun with it in the past, and it’s a little freer than L4D, so you get less people yelling at you – though it can devolve into total chaos as well. The best part is when you get killed as a human, you respawn as a zombie – of course! With all previous knowledge of where your friends were holing up. It should have its own commercial version, really – it’s been lurking in the shadows for quite some years now.
Also – am I not looking at obvious tabs or has the Steam revamp hidden all the free mods? That would be sad if it was true.

I cant play the mutator, because I’m being kicked from every game. I guess theres no room amidst the pros.
On that note, thats why L4d2 got old for me really fast. Its not a FPS, but a running game: Do the optimized route with exactly same maneuvers, or get labeled as a noob.

So, while we’re all whining about how Valve are fucking their community here, how’s this: Did you know that, along with The Passing, they included voice files for a bunch of the most popular community maps for L4D2? Including TF2 references for bomb-cart related missions, and some nice specific voicework for the campaign Cold Blooded.

Valve, in a free update, got their voice crew to do professional voicework for fan-made maps. Yep, they’re terrible and ripping us all off.

These new maps are excellent. Visually distinct, well conceived gameplay spaces. The new infected are cool, and coming across your first pills locker is chucklesome. The only thing that sorta lets The Passing down is the L4D crossover is a little flat, but it was still a cool idea. I’m eager to see how it’ll play out in L4D. Anyway a definite improvement over the Crash Course DLC I reckon (though I still liked Crash Course, free DLC always tastes great).
And honestly anyone here moaning that Valve called it in or knocked out the maps in weekend is either delusional or a map-making GOD. I’ve been making my own L4D maps this year and examining the official maps in the editor reveals the staggering amount of work that gets crammed into these maps. They are much harder to make and design for sure than any of Valves other MP games and probably most MP games im general. Hell, in No Mercy they have logic set up to randomise even basic stuff like whether there are flies or cockroaches in different places on subsequent playthroughs. Sorry, rant over.
SEMPER FI

It’s a pretty good ride if you go see the 3D version, though, so I don’t really understand why you wouldn’t want to. :-) Just don’t expect a thrilling story and a lot of ambiguity.

I have these friends who refuse to go see a movie like Clash of the Titans with me…they say that it all looks so generic and CGI and bland. I’m like…of course it does. But the animations and fight scenes are visceral and fun. It’s not like anyone is expecting a Citizen Kane or anything when they’re buying a ticket for the movie, eh?

Realism Versus is superb. It really brings back the tension to Versus, and necessitates really close Survivor teamwork to make it even half way through the level. It also really shifts the Infected power balance, as Boomers are much more powerful with the tougher zombies, and Jockeys move from being only situationally useful to as scary as they always should have been.

My friends and I played it the night it came out. I’m planning on making my own campaign for the game, so the addition of a new zombie / weapons / items interested me.

I enjoyed the experience of it, and I’m glad that it was free, so I won’t argue with that. The extra stuff will be fun to play around with in the editor. Not sure if all these items/features were added to the other maps, somebody reply if they can confirm that.

That being said, I thought it was completely over-hyped. I’m into level design, and to me, the way they had worded it, I had envisioned something to the effect of both teams meeting each-other across a bridge and having to help each other make it through the city. One team does one thing to progress, causing problems for the other team. One team takes positions on a rooftop, and provides cover while the other escapes.

Kind of a tag-team style of gameplay. Totally doable, and with the right amount of imagination you could come up with some pretty good story there.

The levels were extremely short, and I felt more like it was something made by fans, and not the creators. The maps themselves looked alright and some unique ideas to them, no complaints there, but there were some parts that really just kind of made you sit back and wonder if this was “professional” quality.

===SPOILER===

The sewer level in particular. The challenge is running across a vast, flat, non-lit room. It was interesting and challenging, yes, but I can’t help but feel that if some fan had made this content, he’d have been flamed and criticized for being lame in his mapping.

The last level was fun and i consider it to be the best, but the problem is once again, there was absolutely zero story or depth to it. One of the characters from L4D1 dies… How? It’s not even mentioned, you don’t see it play out, there’s no cutscene or anything. An epic showdown with a tank perhaps? A “Run! You guys get the hell out of here, I’ll hold them off!” sort of thing would have been perfect for this situation.

Maybe you lower the bridge but one of the people has to stay behind to detonate a bomb to save the rest of you, and it would randomly decide which L4D character would die.

See, these are just ideas right off the top of my head, and I’m an amateur mapper. From the creators of the same game, this is instead what we receive.

===END OF SPOILER===

What it feels like to me is that, ultimately, The Passing feels like an unfinished “on the drawing board” project that one of the mappers had an idea of, but it got left out of the original release. It was okay, but with a little creative spark it could have really shined.

My friends and I played it the night it came out. I’m planning on making my own campaign for the game, so the addition of a new zombie / weapons / items interested me.

I enjoyed the experience of it, and I’m glad that it was free, so I won’t argue with that. The extra stuff will be fun to play around with in the editor. Not sure if all these items/features were added to the other maps, somebody reply if they can confirm that.

That being said, I thought it was completely over-hyped. I’m into level design, and to me, the way they had worded it, I had envisioned something to the effect of both teams meeting each-other across a bridge and having to help each other make it through the city. One team does one thing to progress, causing problems for the other team. One team takes positions on a rooftop, and provides cover while the other escapes.

Kind of a tag-team style of gameplay. Totally doable, and with the right amount of imagination you could come up with some pretty good story there.

The levels were extremely short, and I felt more like it was something made by fans, and not the creators. The maps themselves looked alright and some unique ideas to them, no complaints there, but there were some parts that really just kind of made you sit back and wonder if this was “professional” quality.

===SPOILER===
The sewer level in particular. The challenge is running across a vast, flat, non-lit room. It was interesting and challenging, yes, but I can’t help but feel that if some fan had made this content, he’d have been flamed and criticized for being lame in his mapping.

The last level was fun and i consider it to be the best, but the problem is once again, there was absolutely zero story or depth to it. One of the characters from L4D1 dies… How? It’s not even mentioned, you don’t see it play out, there’s no cutscene or anything. An epic showdown with a tank perhaps? A “Run! You guys get the hell out of here, I’ll hold them off!” sort of thing would have been perfect for this situation.

Maybe you lower the bridge but one of the people has to stay behind to detonate a bomb to save the rest of you, and it would randomly decide which L4D character would die.

See, these are just ideas right off the top of my head, and I’m an amateur mapper. From the creators of the same game, this is instead what we receive.
===END OF SPOILER===

What it feels like to me is that, ultimately, The Passing feels like an unfinished “on the drawing board” project that one of the mappers had an idea of, but it got left out of the original release. It was okay, but with a little creative spark it could have really shined.

@L.A: You are forgetting that the Passing DLC for L4D1 (or whatever they’re calling it) is where we find out more about the sacrifice from the original team. But I think your tag-team progression idea sounds great its a pity they didn’t go with something similar.